Can I have a Bailout too??

Well not really, unlike the federal government, I know how to manage my finances, don’t borrow more than I can afford, properly vet where I am borrowing from; consider the paying myself first a rule, and have savings in anticipation of what could happen. Unlike the Federal government, I am a single person, which means, I only have my income, and I would never ever dream of asking my parents for money! Not the Feds, they seem to think they can borrow from the very folks who provide them with their income in the first place!! That is like receiving an allowance, spending too much and then going back to your parents for a 20 year advance. Actually, it may be more like borrowing money from your children’s accounts, but you don’t have children yet.

Here is my feminist thought on yesterday and today’s hearings. Wouldn’t this all be different if there was at least one woman at the table and more than a few on the Financial Services House Committee, 13 of the 69 members is women, about 5%*. To date there has never been a female Secretary of Treasury or Chairperson of the Federal Reserve Bank. Women are typically the CFO’s of their families, and very conscious of the fluctuation of the market, where they shop not Wall Street. The actual market can be a better indicator of exactly what is happening in the country and world financially. I believe a woman would have raised the red flag many, many months ago. I think the collapse of Bear Stearns, should have really put us into a panic, but most of Wall Street and the feds just kept their heads in the sand. The other big difference between men and women, we would be much quicker to hold people accountable and make clear the deadlines, requirements, and potential consequences.

Hello Wall Street and CEO’s you are all taking a big time out! I have a friend who after her daughter is finished with her time-out she gives her a hug. The time out is not meant to make her children feel bad, but to understand that if they act-out, don’t follow the rules, they need to think about what they did to get into a Time-Out in the first place. Well the citizens are not MAD, the government is not MAD, I am sure when we are on the other side of this crisis we will be able to have hugged-it-out. But Wall Street and their leaders need to seriously think about what they did in first place to financially bring this country to its knees, and what plans they have to make sure it does not happen again.

Another close friend, a Marine Pilot, also uses the time-out philosophy to explain to his young children why daddy needs to travel to another country for extended periods of time. There are bad people that need to be put into Time-Out. This comment is not meant to start a conversation of the wars overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, just an example of using the time-out philosophy, pretty simple, Time-Out.

In the case of the Wall Street CEOs I would be remiss if I did not touch on one major cornerstone of the fight ensuing in Congress and the Senate over this $700 billion bailout package CEO compensation. I really could go on about this, but wanted to end with this item from the Congressional Committee of Oversight & Government Reform back in March of 2007;

CEO Pay Continues to Rise Dramatically. Executive pay is increasing rapidly and dramatically. The CEOs of the 500 largest American companies received an average of $15 million each in 2006, a 38% raise from 2005. And the gap between CEOs and other workers is also increasing. In 1980, CEOs were paid 40 times the average worker. Today, they are paid 600 times more.

Representative Henry Waxman is the King of time-outs!

* total the number of women serving in the 110th Congress, 70 out of 435, 6%.

Don't forget we still have not Ratified the ERA

Yesterday when I heard that NOW was finally announcing their support of a Presidential candidate, Obama-Biden. NOW typically waits until later in the game announce who they are supporting, but they are still one of the most important ant influential PACs representing Women's voices.

I was reminded that the ERA was still pending, since 1972! This proposed yet unratified amendment to the US Constitution guarantees rights to all Americans regardless of sex. Yup, women still are not protected under the constitutional law as a matter of our gender. Its 2008 people! Why does this continue to be such a difficult amendment to pass, it has been reintroduced in Congress every year since 1982. This is not a partisan issue, this is an American issue, one that we cannot forgot. It has definitely been left to collect dust, the longest standing proposed amendment still outstanding with only 15 states needed to ratify.

Abigail Adams first broughtit up to her husband John in 1776, freedom for women, and he jsut laughed at there mere thougth of women being treated as equals to their husbands. Then in 1923, Alice Paul, introduced the first version of what woudl become the equal rights amendment; "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction."

So who is against the ERA?? Well a few theories are that women would be required to register for the draft just as men currently do, and would have to serve in combat just as men, and also that the ERA would also remove laws that specially protect women, such as labor laws in heavy industry. You know what, I am pretty sure even with ERA passing, the men that run our government will think of ways to keep us form comabt, even though participation of women in the military has reached almost 20%, plus the number of females working for private contractors. Considering all of those women are mostly being deployed overseas and having to take on more dangerous assignments, as gunners and protecting the convoys. My company, the largest defense contractor in the US (I know, i have heard it before....) has lost two employee's as contracotrs supporting the current war efforts. They both worked in Afghanistan, and were both women, single mothers. They were willing to sacrafice beign home with their kids to make good mone yto support their families.

Of course women are going to take on more and more roles that were more typically male-centric, but we want to and we can take on these more challenging and often dangerouswork. Or we don't have to, that is the wonderful thing of choice, we can do what we want!! But as long as we are willing to take on these roles, why can we not be protected under federal law? In another post I will get into the ecomomic inequalities in the workforce, but note here.

I will end with this thought, what if women no longer held positions of leadership, deferred to their husbands, lived at home until they got married, and basically had no opinions. What would this world look like, and would we all really want to live in it??

How much do education credentials really matter?

Think about the following, we are voting for the CEO and Asst CEO for the US, not an entry-level position for a recent college graduate, or even a manager position.

Bush went to Yale and has trouble constructing a sentence. That noted, check this out...

McCain graduated the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1958. (Much like Bush, his father and grandfather also went there, thus making him a "legacy"). His final class rank was 894 out of 899.

In 1982, Palin enrolled at Hawaii Pacific College but left after her first semester, transferring in 1983 to North Idaho College and then to the University of Idaho. She attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska for one term, returning to the University of Idaho to complete her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987. So that is four or five colleges (depending on how you count the two stints at U. of Idaho). Took her 5 years to graduate with communications degree. Scuttlebutt is that she was invited to leave Univ of Idaho the first time, went to the Alaska juco to get the ol' grades back up, then went back to that fine institution in Idaho to finish.

Barrack Obama has a B.A. in international relations, 1983, from Columbia University. Also, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was Editor of the Harvard Law Review. I've also read that he was "President" of the Harvard Law Review, rather than Editor. Editor is more prestigious (at least where I went). Incidentally, his wife is also a Harvard Law graduate.

In 1961, Joe Biden graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware[3 and, in 1965, from the University of Delaware in Newark,[5] where he double-majored in history and political science.[3] He went on to receive his J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.

So, you are scanning resumes to chose the next CEO of your company. Obama is surely the top candidate here (looking solely at education). McCain's Naval Academy degree is impressive, no doubt, but nearly last in the class sounds like this is someone who got in "somehow" and either did not belong or was a terrible under achiever. Of the four, he might get an interview.

Biden attended better than average schools. He has a law degree, which is an accomplishment. Being admitted to DE bar is very impressive since it is the toughest place in the country to be "barred". He gets an interview for sure.

Palin's resume goes in the trash, no? Her education sounds like that of a party girl, or someone who is not too bright, or someone who has a hard time finishing what she starts. No matter how you slice it, she is not a good candidate for CEO.

Ignorance is no Excuse

A friend recently told me one of her favorite quotes, " Excuses are tools for the ignorant". Well I think there are way too many examples of both Governor Palin and Senator McCain to prove that quote as true. Does McCain really know the difference between Mexico and Spain, or is it all just the same to him, so much for foreign policy experience.
Transcript of Radio Interview, McCain being asked about meeting with the President of Spain, Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain, should he be elected.

Items suggested by Friends, Must Read

Saying you are no longer interested in a pork barrel project, after the option has expired and been thrown out, really means that you wanted what you could not get. Not that you did not ask for the bacon and pork roll in the first place. I smell scrapple, or as a close friend says, " I really don't want to eat anything with Crap in the name", well neither do I.

Fact Check: McCain misstates Palin earmarks record

This is an example of the double-talk that I think we are all sick of. People, the same rules apply to everyone, what happened to regardless of Race, Sex, Age, Sexual Orientation, Religion, & Politics.

Is it really about the Lipstick?

I have had enough, I have had enough of hearing about the pathetic ads, well I don't actually see them because A-I have a DVR and B-I live in NJ, apparently so blue that neither of the candidates really bother to visit. I have had enough of the lipstick talk, and YES McCain did make the comment first, in Iowa on 10/11/2007 he was referring to her health care plan as putting "lipstick on the pig, but it's still a pig." He actually stole the phrase, it is the title of a book by a former Bush/Cheney/Rummy protege, Tori Clarke. She is the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under the Donald. Coincidentally, the book is actually about Spin in Politics. Which is what the media, and everyone continues to do, spin the same old boring story. Give us something new, please anything.

So no, it was not a slight on Sarah. Is everything really about her? Serioulsy.... get over it!


Since I am on the topic of Lipstick, Lipstick Jungle will be back Wednesday 9/24 at 10 PM.